One More for the Road by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page A

every night for years!”
    â€œI believe it,” said Sid. “They’re hilarious.”
    â€œYou don’t find it sad?”
    â€œSad? Come off it! They’re a vaudeville team. I could put them on the Orpheum circuit tomorrow!”
    â€œNot even a little sad?”
    â€œStop. I bet they’re married fifty years. The yammer started before the wedding and kept going after their honeymoon.”
    â€œBut they don’t listen !”
    â€œHey, they’re taking turns ! First hers not to listen, then his. If they ever paid attention they’d freeze. They’ll never wind up with Freud.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThey’re letting it all hang out, there’s nothing left to carp or worry about. I bet they get into bed arguing and are asleep with smiles in two minutes.”
    â€œYou actually think that?”
    â€œI had an aunt and uncle like that. A few insults shape a long life.”
    â€œHow long did they live?”
    â€œAunt Fannie, Uncle Asa? Eighty, eighty-nine.”
    â€œ That long?”
    â€œOn a diet of words, distemper almost, Jewish badminton—he hits one, she hits it back, she hits one, he hits it back, nobody wins but, hell, no one loses.”
    â€œI never thought of it that way.”
    â€œThink,” said Sid. “Come on, it’s time for refills.”
    We turned and strolled back on this fine summer night.
    â€œAnd another thing!” the old man was saying.
    â€œThat’s ten dozen other things!”
    â€œWho’s counting?” he said.
    â€œLook. Where did I put that list?”
    â€œLists, who cares for lists?”
    â€œMe. You don’t, I do. Wait!”
    â€œLet me finish!”
    â€œIt’s never finished,” Sid observed as we moved on and the great arguments faded in our wake.
    Two nights later Sid called and said, “I got me a tape recorder.”
    â€œYou mean?”
    â€œYou’re a writer, I’m a writer. Let’s trap a little grist for the mills.”
    â€œI dunno,” I said.
    â€œOn your feet,” said Sid.
    We strolled. It was another fine mild California night, the kind we don’t tell Eastern relatives about, fearful they might believe.
    â€œI don’t want to hear,” he said.
    â€œShut up and listen,” she said.
    â€œDon’t tell me,” I said, eyes shut. “They’re still at it. Same couple. Same talk. Shuttlecock’s always in the air over the net. No one’s on the ground. You really going to use your tape recorder?”
    â€œDick Tracy invented , I use .”
    I heard the small handheld machine snap as we moved by, slowly.
    â€œWhat was his name? Oh, yeah. Isaac.”
    â€œThat wasn’t his name.”
    â€œIsaac, sure.”
    â€œAaron!”
    â€œI don’t mean Aaron, the older brother.”
    â€œYounger!”
    â€œWho’s telling this?”
    â€œYou. And bad.”
    â€œInsults.”
    â€œTruths you could never take.”
    â€œI got scars to prove it.”
    â€œHot dog,” said Sid as we glided on with their voices in his small device.
    Â 
    And then it happened. One, two, three, like that.
    Quite suddenly the bench was empty for two nights.
    On the third night I stopped in a small kosher delicatessen and talked, nodding at the bench. I didn’t know the names. Sure, they said, Rosa and Al, Al and Rosa. Stein, they said, that was the name. Al and Rosa Stein, there for years, never missed a night. Now, Al will be missed. That was it. Passed away Tuesday. The bench sure looks empty, right, but what can you do?
    I did what I could, prompted by an incipient sadness about two people I didn’t really know, and yet I knew. From the small local synagogue I got the name of the almost smaller graveyard and for reasons confused and half-known went one late afternoon to look in, feeling like the twelve-year-old goy I once was, peering into the temple in downtown L.A.,